"Cycle of Balance - Chapter 4" by Dabao ´The Monkey´ Jia

        “Get up Twlight! You can’t sleep forever. Who’s gonna help me catch breakfast then huh? Tell me that! Now get up you ol’ scoundrel you.”
        “Huh? Wuh? Morning already?” Twilight heaved himself from the branch of a rotting tree.
        “Good, now git down ‘ere. My stomach’s ‘a growlin’ for food.” John announced from below.
        After carefully strapping his belt on, Twilight nimbly leaped down to stand beside John and Dusk. Apparently, Dusk had already gotten up. Nodding his head once, Twilight took out his bow and an arrow from his quiver and kneeled behind a tree, Dusk following suit. John walked off, wading through a swamp nearby.
        A while later, Twilight heard a squeak of an animal. Toning his hearing, he heard a splash and all of the sudden a huge vulture-like bird erupted through what was left of the leaves on a particularly nasty-looking tree just ahead. Dusk reacted and bounded in front of it trapping it for the time being, between him and John. Now it was Twilight’s turn. He took aim, placing his arrow on the string of his bow, pulling it taught. Saying a silent prayer in his head, he let loose the hand of death. The arrow whistled through the air, rotating rapidly and sliced through the weak feathers of the bird’s chest. The scavenger squawked feebly one last time and plummeted forward splashing in the swamp as John swam the last few feet, hoisting the dead animal onto his back and made his way to Twilight.
        “Nice kill Twilight. I couldn’t have done better myself. Now all we need is a nice fire and the feast is ours.” John said cheerily, “But that won’t be a problem will it? There are enough dead branches around here to last us centuries, let alone days.” John strolled around, picking up dead branches as he went, while Twilight shakily placed his bow back onto his back. Noticing how quiet he was, John put down his branches and sat down beside Twilight, resting a hand on his shoulder. Dusk was also beside Twilight, gently nudging him on the shoulder and whimpering slightly. “What’s wrong me bucko?” John said.
        “I killed it John. I murdered it. It just, died.” Twilight stuttered, breath coming out in gasps.
        “It’s alright Twilight, it’s alright. You had to do it. It part of the cycle of life. You gotta kill to live. It also part’a survival, y’kno’? There isn’t nothin’ wrong with killing to live. If you killed an innocent baby, or if you killed for the fun of it, now that’s wrong. Or if you killed for no reason at all. That’s wrong too, but this. This ain’t wrong. Ya hear me?”
        Twilight lit up a bit. “Ya, I hear you. I guess you’re right too.”
        “O’ course I’m right! I am John after all. Heh. If I ain’t right, who is? Hmm, well I guess it too late for breakfast now, so this is gonna be brunch”, John regarded, pointing at the dead bird.
        John stood up and made a fire using the branches he’d collected and used another one to skewer the bird, placing it atop two upright sticks above the fire to cook. All the while Twilight watched, thinking about what John had said. “I don’t want to kill”, he thought to himself quietly.

        “Shhhhhh! Quiet and stay behind the leaves of that tree.”
        “What? What do you see? I don’t see anything much from up here.”
        “Merrow!” Dusk disagreed.
        “Not see, Twilight, hear. Now be quiet I think it’s getting louder.” John hissed under his breath.
        “I hear it now, you mean the thumping?”
        “Yes and it’s coming from the other end of the clearing!” replied John with a note of agitation in his rough voice.”
        A series of deep thumping noises, now clearly coming from the other end of the long, grassy clearing grew louder, pursued by loud cracks of twigs and sharp rustling of grass.
        “John, d’you think it’s more people?” asked Twilight curiously.
        “No. Do you ever remember us humans sounding like that when we hunt? Even when we purposely stomp about it doesn’t sound the slightest bit like that!”

        Twilight recalled the past three nights and two days since they first arrived at the test area. There wasn’t much difficulty. Each day they’d get up and catch something to eat and then they’d try to get a layout of the land during the afternoon and finally having another meal before finding a safe place to spend the night. During the times when they were hunting, John’s strategy would always be to outright kill it face to face. But he could never bring himself to look at anything he was about to kill, preferring to use the stealthy way and slice the throat from behind or snipe it from behind some bushes or leaves. They had only met one other group of 3 people on the second day when both parties had been hunting the same prey. The other party had left without the dead animal as soon as they found out John and Twilight were there. Everybody had spread out in different directions knowing that the more people were together, the higher chance they might be found by a predator they couldn’t deal with.

        Twilight’s sword hand started straying up to his bow. “I don’t like this.” He began hearing sniffing from the general direction of the thumping sound. “I don’t like this one bit.” Immediately after he whispered that, the trees ahead shattered before his eyes and a blood-red head emerged from the dust. The head bore two fierce, crimson eyes under jagged brows of flames. Acidic drool dripped forth from the beast’s mouth where Twilight saw lined rows of razor-sharp predator teeth. The being pointed it’s gruesome head to sky and roared as the smoke and dust cleared revealing mottled reptilian features, scarred by the fire erupting from the cracks in it’s hide from countless battles through the ages. The veins of lava along its wings didn’t make Twilight feel any better either in his current circumstance. Dusk had started growling.

        “Demon,” John whispered under his breath, careful not to betray their presence, “a Fire Demon actually, born from the fires of ancient volcanoes that’ve seen too many battles and dyed by the rivers of blood surrounding them. These are truly rare beasts. They also cannot be infected by anything. Created from fire, they can also use fire and heal minor injuries such as a bit of contamination and a few scratches, although it shall leave a scar. And considering the fact that they can also summon fire at will, they are basically able to heal themselves. Any major injuries will require time in which their magic will naturally remove the injury. Quite amazing, the demons.”
        “A daemon?!?!” exclaimed Twilight. He quickly clasped his mouth, but not soon enough, as the demon’s head darted to their position.
        “No idiot! Not a daemon, a demon, there’s a difference. Now do as I told u for the third time! Be quiet!” John hissed back.

        Although it was too late, for the demon seemed to be aware of their presence, rising to its full height and cast their surroundings with his ominous shadow. A thick veil of fear seemed to enclose everything in sight of it. Even the trees seemed to shrink under the demon’s imposing glare.
        Twilight pondered if there was any way out of this. Luckily, however, he noticed that one of its wings were crumpled, as if at some point it was stupid enough to get in the way of a giant boulder bouncing down from a mountain peak and get hit on the wing, then proceeded to attempt to eat such boulder that hit it (being as angry at the boulder as it probably was), assuming it was as hungry back then as it looked now (the demon looked pretty stupid and hungry). Twilight doubted if demons were smart, nor if they were stupid, just average. But then again, there were always those rare exceptions that go against all their races unwritten rules and limits. Limits for stupidity wouldn’t be very surprising. Just why he felt that the demon was stupid, he didn’t know, but his gut feeling never let him down before yet. Twilight put all this information at the back of his head, in case he needed to recall on any of this later on. But just to make sure, he would ask John.
        “Psst! John!” Twilight whispered.
        “Huh?”
        “This kinda sounds like a stupid question, but do you think this one’s stupid too? And he can’t seem to fly either.” Dusk nodded to this.
        “Now that you mention it, it does seem pretty clumsy doesn’t it, looking around not knowing what to do next…he keeps looking our way though. But they’re usually never idle. Yes, the wing appears to be injured too.”

        The demon finally was able to make up its mind deciding to investigate the disturbances behind a particular bush and tree. Lumbering up the spot, it was about to pick them up when two things suddenly erupted from behind both of them. Not startled, but confused, the demon looked around for both of them but could find neither, when suddenly, a piece of wood planted itself on its neck. It span around but found nothing. Now getting weary, it slowly circled about, ready to rend anything that might be the one who dared attack it. Then, another arrow flew across the sky, targeting the demon itself. Using its clawed hand, it deftly deflected it and using the other claw, conjured an immense sphere of green fire, flames licking his hand repeatedly, and fired it at the place where it saw a young, blond-haired, human-child darting back into the “protection” of the trees. It managed to pick out the boy, on what seemed a panther-like animal, just managing to leap out of harms way as all the plant life near where he just was exploded in a sea of flames. This was almost worth delaying breakfast for.
        He was about to conjure another ball of flame when he had a sort of itch appeared along its back, then a sharp pain immediately afterward at the base of its neck. Reaching behind, the demon felt a piece of metal stuck there and something wriggling and drew them both out in front of his face. A measly attempt to hurt it but still bothered the monster nevertheless, and threw the human and metal into a canopy of trees. The demon would really have chuckled, if not for the fact that he was supposed to be interrogating and sinister; so instead, it satisfied itself by breathing fire to the sky, signifying its superiority.

        “John!” yelled Twilight desperately, hoping for an answer that might relieve him of his worry. Dusk was crying out in worry as well. It was actually Johns plan that Twilight distract the beast while he sneak up its spine hoping that the neck was the weak spot, but instead, Twilight found himself watching miserably as his friend was tossed unceremoniously into the air and heard a thump as he landed.
        Strangely, Twilight found himself strangely calm. And instead of panicking, he got off Dusk, and crept around the other side of the demon, so the demon wouldn’t see him, then notching his bow again, let loose another arrow. The arrow slipped right into a gash along the demon’s wing, right where Twilight was aiming for. Dusk came by and leaping onto his back, they quickly moved to another spot, so as not to be detected as the demon might look for the source of the attack, before watching the effects of his arrow.
        It had just the desired effect. Of course, it was burnt to ashes by the heat of the demon, but not before leaving something behind. A sizzling sound had come from the wound, with thick smoke rising from it, yet an unhealthy thick smoke. Both the smoke and the gash turned a deep brownish-green tinge, and as an added bonus, a few rancid bubbles grew and popped from it. Twilight had actually drenched his arrow in some gruesome water from a swamp they passed, contained in his hip flask. He didn’t boil it in hot water yet, as it would have took care of all harmful stuff in it, because they didn’t have time. So naturally, the demon would have feared water, and on top of that, it was contaminated water from a swamp, highly unhealthy, even for a creature such as this.

        The fire demon yelped and padded away, using three limbs, one arm clasping the infected wound. Twilight figured the demon would eventually realize he can cure that using his fire, as it was only minor. Painful, yet still a small injury. Putting all equipment away, the duo hurried to find John. Not too far away he found John slouched against a tree stump, with his blade sunk into the ground. Sadly, his bow was broken, but he never really used it much anyway.
        “John. John, can you hear me? Say something!”
        “M’alright me boy. Just got a bruise here and there.” John glanced at his left leg, where there was a gaping cut where blood had evidently splattered from it all over the place. It had stopped now though. “And a scratch there,” indicating his leg.
        “Scratch huh? Don’t hurt does it? After all, only a scratch”
        “That’s right! Now you’re getting it! Only an itsy bitsy teentsy weentsy scratchty watchy.”
        “Well then me-tsy weetsy gonna go find a sheltsy weltsy where we can sleepy weepy” said Twilight, noticing how dark it was.
        “Woah there bucko!” John hurriedly exclaimed. Twilight swore John was almost afraid just then. “Ya ain’t gonna leave me here are ya? Not even helpin’ me poor leg an’ all!”
        “Seems like bitsy witsy scratch just got bigger din’ it?”
        “Heh.” John scratched his head absent-mindedly with a finger. “Oh ya! Dun’ knows how it got bigger! Must have been that darn magic of that demon over there that was. By the way,” John cocked an eyebrow, “ya did take care o’ that demon did ya?”
        Twilight straightened his back a bit. “Yup.” He said proudly.
        “Well that’s good.” Sighed John wearily. John paused a moment, thinking. “An’ ya ain’t gonna leave me behind?” He finally moped.
        “Nope”
        “Well, you sure are growin’ up. So git goin’ then ya mangy old bub you!” John waved him away.

        After an hour or so, Twilight got back with some herbs and acknowledged that Dusk hadn’t moved since he left, guarding John vigilantly. Squishing the juice out of the herbs with the side of his knife, Twilight applied it to some unusually large, yet innocent-looking, leaves he found and wrapped them around John’s leg. Seeing as how John couldn’t quite climb yet, Twilight helped John onto Dusk’s back as they made their way to a cave. They had decided to not have supper, as it was getting dark. Then they started discussing a bit about their situation.
        “That’s funny, the human alliance were supposed to be watching us and should have picked us up this afternoon,” said John.
        “Mrerow.”
        “Maybe they didn’t want to get in the way of the demon’s next meal?”
        “No, they aren’t scared of them. I’ve even heard of individual houses hiring people to capture a demon as part of a gladiator thing they made.”
        “Well, I for one am sleepy, and I don’t wanna talk about this so if you don’t mind, so I’m going to bed.” And Twilight plopped down on a straw mattress he made and almost instantly started snoring. Dusk, as usual, did as Twilight did, and curled about him, falling asleep within minutes.
        “You’re just in a good mood because you beat that demon” John pouted to Twilight’s sleeping form. Then John sat back on his mattress and stared at the ceiling, wondering about the future…